Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Bagels

I eat my fair share of bagels. Frankly it’s hard not to when you live in New York City and there are bagel shops all over the place (Bergen Bagels being my favorite close-to-home joint). I’m not just a bagel-eater, I’ve actually made a lot of bagels, too, at my first restaurant job where we’d get slammed with weekend brunch crowds who all seemed to want the smoked trout with quail egg and a mini bagel….so Lauren Groveman’s recipe wasn’t totally Greek (or should I say Yiddish?) to me.

There were a couple of things I did differently than the recipe, just out of old habits. After boiling the bagels for about a minute on each side, I removed them from the water and placed them on a cooling rack set over a baking sheet. I baked them on the rack as well, because it allows the oven heat to circulate underneath the bagels. I didn’t bother brushing them with the egg white glaze before baking. They may not have been laquer-shiny, but they still browned very nicely and the toppings held in place. Also, in the bagel dough, I used half sugar and half barley malt syrup for the sweetener, which Groveman did on the TV show, but did a little differently in the book (which calls for only sugar).

I wasn’t super-prepared in the toppings department, so I just went with poppy seeds on some and grey salt on others. The salt ones were my favorite. I stirred some dill and chives into cream cheese to jazz up my schmear a bit. These were chewy and had a nice crust….with a cup of coffee, these bagels made for a perfect New York breakfast.

If you’ve never had a super-fresh, warm bagel before, you can really make great ones at home, so give it a go! You can make the dough the night before and it’s ready to shape and cook off the next morning. For the recipe, seeBaking with Juliaby Dorie Greenspan or read Heather’s Bytes(it’s alsohere).And there’s even a video of Julia and Lauren making bagels together.Don’t forget to check out the rest of theTWD Blogroll!

The color of your bagels is perfect. Thanks for the tip of baking them on a cooling rack. I noticed that she used the malt syrup in the video, but not in the book. I found some at Whole Foods, but didn’t want to spend the $6.99 for a small bottle. However, now that I have made them and enjoyed them, I will get the malt syrup and try them next time.

Wow, they look great!
I’m one of the unlucky (or lucky) persons that have to bake bagels at home, since they are quite exotic where I live…
I admit, I am lucky to have enjoyed making them and eating them and showing my small children what a bagel is and how to make it (it could be useful …sometimes in life!)